4 Ways to Grow Your Instagram Following

Building an Instagram following, like building any social media following, takes time. Having a social media following can help you do a number of things:

1. Establish and build your brand.
2. Serve existing customers or clients.
3. Attract new customers or clients.
4. Expand your marketing and advertising reach.
5. Provide an additional sales channel.

Instagram, like Facebook, offers an advertising feature to attract more followers through its self-serve Meta advertising platform. Advertising in this way can increase your follower count, but you may end up with random followers who won’t engage with your content.

Here are some more organic, free ways to build a more engaged following:

1. Invite your customers and prospects to follow you.

You can invite your customers to follow you on Instagram in many ways, from hanging up flyers with a QR code that leads customers to your Instagram account to putting a QR code or your Instagram URL or handle on print marketing collateral, product packaging, and signage.

A direct way to get your customers to follow you on Instagram is to send an email to your email list with a clear invitation to follow and a link directly to your Instagram account. You could include an to gain followers such as doing a random drawing of recent followers and offering a prize. The benefit of asking your existing customers to follow your account is that you are more likely to see engagement from them.

2. Interact with compatible accounts.

With limited time and a business to run, you might be more focused on producing Instagram-worthy content and forgetting to interact with not only people who comment on your posts or send you a Direct Message, but also like other people’s posts.

There are other ways you can interact with others on Instagram including sharing their post to your Instagram Story, inviting someone else to be a co-host of a post with you to expand the post’s reach, and "remixing" a Reel where you can add your own content next to the original content.

Interacting with other Instagram users can attract them as followers and can also put your content in front of their followers, increasing your exposure.

3. Create an “aesthetic” for your Instagram feed.

Some of the more popular Instagram accounts have a particular look and feel. They could be using a specific color scheme, sticking to a particular color palette that is on brand and visually appealing. They might use a consistent image layout or composition such as using a white frame around images to create more white space on their Instagram page. Some use a posting pattern so that their Instagram page has alternating types of images such as quote images spaced between photographs.

Developing a visual style is one way to attract attention, likes, and follows.

4. Use a combination of Reels and Stories.

Instagram Stories are mostly visible to your existing followers, prominently displayed at the top of the mobile and web-based app. Reels, on the other hand, can potentially reach non-followers, particularly if featured by Instagram on its Explore page - something you can pay for or that could happen organically with the right combination of engagement, hashtags, relevance, and luck.

Mixing up the type of content you publish on Instagram can help you to reach a wider audience. A quick and easy way to boost the visibility of a standard post or Reel is to add it to your Story.

There are services available where you can "buy" followers. However, doing so can give you mixed results. There is a benefit to having what appears to be a large following, however, bought followers tend not to be engaged followers - and they are most likely not going to be your target market.

Overall, leveraging all the features Instagram offers and posting quality content frequently and consistently can help you gain more followers.